Diane Sawyer vs. 'Too Rich' Romney

Republican strategists should generally be wary of campaign advice from
liberals – and when it’s from the media, generally becomes definitely.
Washington Post political writer Chris Cillizza recently suggested Mitt
Romney’s general-election strategy should start with getting a “positive
first introduction” to voters through the liberal media because “only
the national media can provide that megaphone and serve as a sort of
validator for him.”

How hard did he laugh after he wrote that?

No Republican should think he can end-run the liberal media
establishment entirely and not suffer damage. Ask Dick Cheney. On the
other hand, no Republican can expect fairness from these people, either.
Romney should enter the national-media coliseum fully aware he’s
designed to be food for the lions.

Exhibit A comes from ABC’s Diane Sawyer. This is how Sawyer probed
Obama just after the 2006 elections: “Do you think that residual
resistance is greater for race or for gender? Is the nation secretly, I
guess, more racist or more sexist?”

In keeping with that line, Sawyer would be expected to ask Romney today
if he felt his wealth would be used against him by those who begrudge
success. Not even close. Instead, she implied Romney should be dismissed
as a Richie Rich or Thurston Howell type who can’t connect to the
Little People. On “World News,” she hammered Romney with five questions
about his wealth and his tax returns.

Sawyer
announced “the Obama campaign is working overtime to paint the portrait
of a man whose riches have put him out of touch.” She then offered the
Obama spin: “The speaking fees, the Cadillacs, the story out now that
there's an elevator for your cars in the new house you’re planning in La
Jolla. Are you too rich to relate?”

There’s an obvious answer that Romney did not give. “Diane, you make
$12 million a year. The ritzy Manhattan penthouse, the wealthy movie
director husband, the estate on Martha’s Vineyard. Does that make you
too rich and elitist to relate to your audience?”

Romney’s actual answer wasn’t bad. “We don't divide America based upon
success and wealth and other dimensions of that nature. We're one nation
under God. We come together. This is a time when people of different
backgrounds and experiences need to come together.”

Sawyer simply replied by calling it “fairness” to resent the rich: “Do you think the fairness question is about envy?”

Romney adroitly tossed the fairness issue right back. “I think it's
unfair that this President has been in office three and a half years and
93 percent of the people who lost their jobs have been women.”

Sawyer hammered him about the tax returns: “Why not release 12 years,
as your father did?” She said Romney gave 23 years of tax returns to the
McCain campaign during the vice-presidential vetting process in 2008,
so why not release those?

Do you recall Sawyer even asking for this from John Kerry?

By contrast, Sawyer’s last interview with the current president ended
with her asking how much Kentucky would win by in the NCAA basketball
tournament and she compared Obama to Lincoln as she encouraged him to
talk about his prayer life: “What about the famous quote from another
beleaguered President, Abraham Lincoln, who said he had been driven many
times to his knees because his own wisdom and that around him ‘was
insufficient for the day’?”

Obama replied: “I do a lot of praying.” Actually, he does a lot more golfing on Sundays.

Sawyer asked Romney about Mormonism and whether he “could really about
something that holds a lot of curiosity for people? So, do the people
think you're reluctant to talk about being Mormon?” Sawyer did not ask
Obama, “Your mother was an atheist who married two Muslim men. Are you
reluctant to talk about that?” Never mind Jeremiah Wright.

Sawyer even stooped to raising that stupid – and 29-year-old – story
about Romney putting his incontinent dog Seamus in a cartop carrier on a
family trip. “First about Seamus-- which as you know is out there
forever-- would you do it again?”

One host on NPR actually called Romney “the Michael Vick of
presidential candidates.” Sawyer underlined the vulnerability: “You said
it was the most wounding thing in the campaign so far.” That’s why she
wanted to ask it.

So, for the record: Bill Clinton was never asked by a TV anchor if he
raped Juanita Broaddrick in 1978. But they can ask Mitt Romney if he
shouldn’t have put the doggie in a cartop carrier in 1983.

If anyone can point to anything Sawyer has ever asked the Obamas that
compares to this low personal blow, they should speak up. This is just
the opening mudbath. It’s going to get only worse for Romney as we get
closer to November.

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